Gas turbine engines used to power aircraft often include a fan that is driven by an engine core to provide thrust for moving the aircraft. Such fans typically include a fan disk mounted to the engine core and a plurality of fan blades mounted to the fan disk for rotation with the fan disk to push air aftward and produce forward thrust.
In certain situations, it is desirable to push air forward rather than aftward to produce reverse thrust. During landing, for example, reverse thrust causes the aircraft to decelerate, thereby reducing wear on the brakes of the aircraft and enabling the aircraft to stop over shorter landing distances. In some applications, reverse thrust is produced using a thrust reversal device that is adapted to redirect air pushed aftward by the fan forward. Due to the size of many thrust reversal devices, incorporating the thrust reversal devices into gas turbine engines presents challenges. As such, alternative approaches for producing reverse thrust are desirable.